The first thing I think maybe
we should consider is we see the unbelief of Thomas here,
and Thomas has the inglorious identification to be called by
everybody in the world, Doubting Thomas. Doubting Thomas his very
name became known as a symbol of unbelief because of his adamant Obstinate refusal to believe
What was spoken of the Lord And what a lesson that is right from
the beginning to the disciples told him that He didn't have
any reason to think all of them would be making it up, you think?
We've seen the Lord. We've seen the Lord. They spoke
to him. And I'm speaking to you this
morning, and by God's grace, I can tell you I've seen the
Lord, but unless the Lord speaks to you. Thomas had to hear it from the
Lord himself, didn't he? He had to hear it from the Lord
himself and see the Savior crucified in order to believe. And you
will too. You're not just gonna believe me. God's got to speak
through his gospel. You've got to see him by faith
or you'll never believe on him. I can show you ever so skillfully
in the scriptures You still got to hear from him. You got to
hear from him. And being called Downing Thomas,
you know, we tend to think of him in a very bad light. But what we're really doing is looking
in the mirror. We're all so full of unbelief. You remember when The disciples asked the Lord,
he kept saying, I go to my father. And they said, what do you mean? Where are you going? Why? Why would you leave us? And he said, you know where I'm
going and you know the way. And Thomas said, Lord, how can
we know the way? We don't know. How can we know
the way? And the Lord Jesus said to Philip,
have I been so long time with you? And you still don't know me. We don't look down on these saints
of God, these disciples, because we're really just looking in
the mirror, aren't we? Have we heard of him for so long? Have
we heard him speak? Not men. But from his word, by
the power of his Holy Spirit, we hear the Lord Jesus Christ
speak. We've been with him a long time,
some of us, and still we're full of unbelief. And this is what we need. We
need for him to show himself to us again. This is why he's ordained this. That's why he calls this convocation. That's why we have the assembly,
the church. Church means an assembly. Not a building, this is not the
church, this is the church. And we just happened to meet
in this building, and I love this building because of that.
I'm thankful for it. but we love one another. We're
the church and the Lord Jesus loved his church and gave himself
for it. Unbelief is a terrible, terrible
and destructive thing. And whether it's found in an
unbeliever or in a believer, it's a terrible thing. It's not
a coincidence that Thomas is specifically mentioned as not
being there when the other disciples gathered together and they saw
the Lord. You know, religion will use this
as, you know, to beat people over the head, you know, about
your church attendance and things like that. And I understand that
that's petty and it's beside the point. But what isn't beside the point
is that when they met together without Thomas, the Lord came
and was there with them. But Thomas wasn't. And then they met together again,
and Thomas was with them, and the Lord was there with them.
You know what he said about us, about this this morning? Where
two or three are gathered in my name There am I, in the midst
of them. Not looking down on us from a
distance, right in the middle of us. The
Lord Jesus has promised to be here with us. And you know what
he's gonna do? This morning I pray, he's so
gracious to, he's been so faithful to over the years, hasn't he?
He's gonna show us who he is. and what he did for us by the
preaching of his gospel. Again, we don't use fear tactics
or we don't bribe people to want to go to heaven or threaten people
with hell as much of religion does. But I know this, the quickest
way to be like Thomas in verse 25, where he said, I will not
believe, The best way to be that Thomas,
I will not believe. The best way to be Thomas in
verse 25 is to be Thomas in verse 24. What a precious promise our Lord
has given us that when we gather in his name, there I am, there
I am. Look at verse 25 again. The other
disciples therefore said unto him, we've seen the Lord. But
he said unto them, except I shall see in his hands the print of
the nails and put my finger into the print of the nails and thrust
my hand into his side, I will not believe. What a thing to
say. He could have just said, unless I see him in person, I
will not believe. But it was hyperbolic almost,
the way that he was adamant about it, unless I thrust my hand into
his side. What a thing to say. And you
know, I've actually heard, I've heard so-called preachers commend
Thomas for this and expound this verse this way, that it's good
to want to see Christ for yourself and not take somebody else's
word for it. Well, I'll tell you this, if somebody else is
preaching the scriptures and saying what God said, unbelief
is never a good thing. It's never commendable. To say,
I will not believe, that's not commendable. First of all, Thomas,
if he'd have been there, he would have seen him for himself. What's commendable about that?
He missed the Lord because he didn't meet with his saints. Where two or three were gathered
in the Lord's name and where he promised to be, Thomas wasn't
there. What's commendable about that?
And secondly, had not the Lord told him what was gonna happen?
Didn't the Lord Jesus Christ himself say over and over on
the third day, I'm gonna rise again. I must be delivered into the
hands of wicked men and crucified and slain, and on the third day,
I'll rise again. So where do you think Thomas
was? Doesn't matter, does it? He wasn't
with the people of God on the day when the Lord promised that
he would rise from the dead. So this whole thing, Let me ask
you this, do you need to see anything in order to believe? If you do, you're not blessed
of God. The Lord Jesus said, blessed
are those that have not seen and yet have believed. Because
we have the word of God this morning, just like the words
that came out of the Savior's mouth to Thomas directly. Thrust
your hand into my side. Put your finger in the prints
of the nails and be not faithless, but believing. We have a more
sure word of prophecy than that, really. The written, perfect, infallible word of God
Almighty. Simon said, we had a great experience
on the Mount of Transfiguration. We saw the Lord. He appeared
to us, He spoke to us, His glory shone forth. But you know what
Simon said after that? We have a more sure word of prophecy. A more sure word of prophecy
even than an experience. You might say, well, if I had
lived during the Lord's time and I walked with Him and saw
Him every day and heard His word directly, Man, that'd be great,
I'd have believed on him for sure. Judas didn't. Almost nobody else did, just
a handful. And religion loves to say, you
know, the only Jesus people see is you. People didn't see the
Lord in the Lord, much less in you. The only way it happens is our
text. The Lord Jesus has to come, doesn't
He? We're not gonna see Him in person. You know, it's better
that He's not here in person. Did you know that? This is better.
Isn't that what He said? It behooveth you that I go to
my Father. If I go not to my Father, the
Holy Spirit won't come take the things of Christ and show them
to you, the Comforter wouldn't come to you. And he had to go
to the Father from the cross and raised from the dead and
went there to intercede for us by his own precious blood. He
entered into that holy place not made with hands. I'm glad
he's there, aren't you? Interceding for me. As my mediator representative
before God in the very presence of God. Now, Thomas was a believer,
but the unbelief in all of us is a clear picture of the unbeliever.
Our unbelieving nature hasn't changed. We will not believe. Notice the word will in that. We see man's will in the scriptures,
don't we? But it's not like religion talks
about. Oh, we have a free will. You know, when the word will
is mentioned in scripture about us, it talks about we're captives
of Satan at his will, at Satan's will. When it talks about when they
cried, crucify him, crucify him, and they would not, they would
rather have Barabbas, a robber, a murderous career criminal released
unto them because it was the custom that somebody would be
released unto them. But they said, release unto us
Barabbas and crucify the Son of God. Crucify this Jesus of
Nazareth. And the way that's described
was that Pilate delivered him unto their will. Their will. And here we have
Thomas. Did he have a free will? Yeah.
In this sense, I will not believe. Our will is free to sin, and
that's it, because we're depraved. Our nature's depraved. Can a
leopard change his spots? Can an Ethiopian change his skin?
Then will you do good, who are accustomed to do evil? When a
leopard can say, well, I'd rather have stripes. That tiger, I like
the way tigers, I think I'll have stripes instead of spots. Then you can do good. when that
happens. You might do something good then,
but not until. Not until. It's our nature. Our will is depraved because
our nature is depraved. What was it that the Lord, how
did the Lord condemn the Pharisees? He said, you search the scriptures
because in them, you think you have life in your knowledge of
the scriptures. But these are they which testify
of me and you will not. come to me that you might have
life. Now you listen to something about
man's will from an anti-Christ, free will, religious pulpit,
and you'll hear something different. But when you see God's word talking
about our will, that's how it talks about it. Our will was
to crucify the son of God. And our will refuses to believe
on Christ. We make an idol even of the scriptures. and reject the Son of God. And
here in our text, Thomas said, I will not, I will
not believe. And that's all of us by nature. You cannot be saved by an act
of your will. When the scriptures talk about
salvation with regard to the will, it's that leper in Matthew 8.
who came to the Lord, and he didn't say, I'm exercising my
free will today, and I'm gonna choose you, I choose you. He
said, Lord, if you will, you can make me whole, you can make
me clean. That's the will whereby sinners
are saved. Thomas said, I will not And the Lord overruled him, didn't
he? He said, be not faithless, but
believing. The Lord Jesus, let's look at
verses 26 and 27. And after eight days again, his
disciples were within and Thomas with them. Thomas with them. You know, I know that salvation
is according to God's will. That's what we just said. And
his will is eternal. You know, Paul gave thanks to
God for the fact that God had from the beginning chosen the
church in Thessalonica God hath from the beginning chosen you
to salvation. And we know that's an eternal
thing, but I want you to notice a difference here. Thomas not
there and Thomas there made a big difference, didn't it? Thomas,
where God said, I'll meet you there, Thomas was with him. and bless his holy name. Then
came Jesus. If that doesn't happen here this
morning. We've worse than wasted our time. It's not just a waste
of time. If he's not here with us this
morning, that means that we're not hearing his name. And we're
just playing church. And we're all a bunch of hypocrites. Without hope. without God and
without His Son in this world. So boy, we pray for that, we
desire that, we beg Him, Lord be with us this morning, be with
us. Then came Jesus. That's the real
difference. The other difference between
Thomas not being there before and being full of unbelief and
being there this time, and belief being spoken in power to his
heart, That's a difference in the means. The difference, the causal difference
in Thomas being saved is then came Jesus. Then came Jesus. And he spoke
specifically to him. Look at him. Verse 26, after
eight days again, his disciples were within and Thomas with them.
Then came Jesus, the doors being shut, and stood in the midst
and said, peace be unto you. You know, it's interesting, I
always think about that, the doors being shut, why did it
mention that? What does the door being open or shut have to do
with it? Well, it's deliberately showing us that the door was
shut and the Lord just was there in the midst of them. Again, religion talks about,
you know, knocking on, Jesus is knocking on your door, you
know, of your heart, and if you'll just let him in, he'll save you. Saul of Tarsus, I'd say his door
was shut, don't you think? And yet then came Jesus. My door was shut too. I'd slam
the door against God. The fool had said in his heart,
no God for me. Then came Jesus anyway for his sheep, for his people.
He came to save his sheep. He's gonna save his sheep whether
their doors open or shut. And he stood in the midst and he speaks with power. Look
at verse 27. Well, let's look at the rest
of, Verse 26, the doors being shut and stood in the midst.
That's the same word he uses in his promise to us. There am
I in the midst, where two or three gather in my name, there
am I in the midst. There they were gathered in his
name and he stood in the midst and said unto them, peace be
unto you, peace. You're never gonna have any peace
in this world until the Lord speaks it to your heart. Peace,
be still. What else would have calmed those
seas? What else in this universe could
have made those waves lay down but the voice of the Savior?
Peace, be still. Peace be unto you. You're not
gonna find it in this world, are you? It happens when two
or three gather in his name and he speaks through his gospel
and says, peace, I've made peace through the blood of my cross.
Peace be unto you. Verse 27, then saith he to Thomas,
reach hither thy finger and behold my hands and reach hither thy
hand and thrust it into my side. You imagine that shocked Thomas
a little bit. The Lord wasn't there when he
said that about thrusting his hand. That's not kind of a normal
thing that people might say. Thomas was probably thinking,
how does he know what I said? Oh, he was there. He was with Thomas even when
Thomas wasn't with him. When Thomas didn't show up, the
Lord was with him anyway. He's been with me since before
I was born, before I formed thee in your mama's belly. He said
to Jeremiah, I knew you, I knew you. Psalm 139, Lord, when I
was in the lowest places of the earth, if I make my bed in hell,
if I ascend into the heavens, Thou art there, you're there.
And that's the truth. You knit me together, he said
there in Psalm 130, you knit me together in my mother's womb. And I couldn't get away from
you if I wanted to. Isn't that comforting? Isn't
that comforting? When we sing that song, prone
to wander, Lord, I feel it. Don't you feel that? Prone to
leave the God I love. Lord, here's my heart. Take it
and seal it. Seal it. Keep me. Hold me. Restrain me. Embrace me. Don't let go of me. I don't want to let go of Him,
but if I do, it's not alright to let go of the Lord, but it'll
be alright if He's holding on to me, won't it? It'll be alright. That's our salvation. Thomas, reach hither thy finger,
verse 27, and behold my hands, and reach hither thy hand, and
thrust it into my side, and be not faithless, but believing,
but believing. Has the Lord Jesus Christ ever
spoken to you directly in the preaching of the gospel? We don't
hear his audible voice, you're hearing my voice. But if God
is gracious, and God's with us, and God's
given me his word, and what I say is according to the book of this
prophecy, it's because his light is in me. It's because he's given
me the gospel. He's given me a voice to proclaim
it. And you know, I think of often
as a pastor, a preacher, when the Lord said, whatever I've testified unto
you, that's what you tell them. Go ye into all the world and
preach the gospel saying what I said to you. And he said, whoever
hears you, I'll save them. Whoever believes you, I'll say
it. That's because we're ambassadors
of Jesus Christ, as though God did beseech you by us. That's
what's happening. This is not me. This is God beseeching
you by me, by those who he has speak for him. And what's the
message? Be ye reconciled to God. Be not
faithless. Believe on God's Son. Believe
on Him who shed His precious blood for His people. He speaks with power. I can't
do that. It's got to be His power. If
there's any power in the message this morning, it's His power.
And I mean power. Because remember the one that
says to Thomas here, be not faithless. He didn't invite Thomas to believe
on him, did he? This is the God that said, let
there be light. And what happened? There was
light. And he says to Thomas, and he'll
have to say, this is how there's going to be light in your heart.
Be not faithless. God who commanded the light to
shine out of darkness in the beginning has shined in our hearts. That's the testimony of the believer
to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God and only
seen in the face of his son, the Lord Jesus Christ. He comes and stands in the midst. The door may be shut, but he
comes stands in the midst. And that's when faith comes,
when he speaks in power. And how did he say he would do
that? They pleased God by the foolishness
of preaching to save them that believe. Foolishness because
to this world it's foolishness. Foolishness because it's a fool
preaching it. But God said, that's how I'm
gonna save sinners. By the foolishness of preaching.
And look how graciously he accommodates the infirmity of our flesh. He
could have said, be not faithless. He could have given, and we know
faith is the gift of God. By grace are you saved through
faith. And that's not of yourselves, it's the gift of God, not of
works, lest any man should boast. He gave Thomas faith. He commanded
it, didn't he? Scripture says he commandeth
the blessing. That's the God we worship. And yet he accommodates Thomas's
frailty and his infirmity. He remembers that we're dust,
reach hither, reach hither. But also in verse 25, we see,
in verse 25, we see Thomas saying,
except I shall see. And the Lord says later here,
in verse 30, 29, blessed are they that have not
seen. We haven't seen Him physically. We haven't seen Him with our
physical, natural eyes. But blessed are they that see
Him without seeing that, without being able to reach our hand
forth and actually touch Him. And you know, faith is better
than sight. Thomas had seen the Lord before. When the Lord did
appear in their midst, he had seen Him before that and heard
Him speak. But it's when the Lord says to
him, be not faithless, speaks in power to his heart, that Thomas
confesses in verse 28, my Lord and my God. He didn't make excuses. He didn't say, well, man, I would
have been here before, but this came up and that came up. He
didn't try to explain. He didn't defend himself. Nothing
matters when God shows himself to you, when the Lord Jesus appears
to you by faith, through the preaching of the gospel. Nothing
else matters except who he is. That's all you need to know. And to own him. You know, you can say, Lord and
God, you can believe in the sovereignty of God. Crazy not to, if you
read the Bible. God's on the throne. Our God
is in the heavens. He hath done whatsoever He hath
pleased. He hath mercy on whom He will
have mercy. It's not of Him that willeth
or of Him that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy. Crazy
not to see that. He's God. He does what He wants
to. He said, I'll save you if I want
to save you. I'll harden you if I want to harden you. But it's one thing to say Lord
and God and another to say my Lord and my God. He's the Lord and I can know that and not own
him as my Lord. You can believe that every knee
shall bow and never bow your knee. until it's too late. My Lord and my God. And Thomas confessed this when
he saw Christ in his redemptive character. Now people talk about
the baby in the manger. Thank God that our Lord laid
in a manger. He was born of a woman made under
the law that He might redeem them that were under the law.
He was that baby. The Word became flesh and dwelt
among us. And thank God for that. But it
seems like we talk about just about everything, but what happened
on the cross? On Easter Sunday, a lot of people
are gonna be celebrating the resurrection. But who was it
that came out of that tomb? Why was he coming out of a tomb?
Because he died for our sins, according to the scriptures. Because he redeemed, he obtained
eternal redemption for his sheep. And it was in Christ's redemptive
character that Thomas saw him, and that's the gospel. The gospel,
he said, we preach Christ in a manger. Nope. We preach Christ any other way. We preach Christ crucified. It's
the precious blood that washes our sins away. We believe that
it was the son of God that gave himself and made his own soul
an offering for our sin. That was God. The blood of God
has redeemed us. When he stood and spoke with
the Pharisees, they were talking to God. When he sat down on the edge
of that well and drank water, that was God drinking water. When he walked this earth, when
he spoke to his disciples, they said, show us the Father. Show us God. And he said, if
you've seen me, you've seen God. And we see Him in His redemptive,
we see Christ crucified. When we see Him having borne
our sins in His own body on the tree, when we see His precious
blood shed for the remission of our sins, when we see God's
lamb, that's how we're gonna praise Him forever, isn't it?
I'm glad he was in the manger. I'm glad he sat on that well. I'm glad he walked this earth
as my representative and as my righteousness before God. But
when we worship him in glory, we're gonna say worthy is the
lamb that was slain. When we see God's lamb that took
away our sin and redeemed us to God by the sacrifice of himself,
When we see him and him crucified, we'll believe. And that's what
he did, he showed himself unto them. And we'll worship him like Thomas
did, my Lord and my God. We're not gonna say I accept
Jesus as my personal Savior, we're gonna say my Lord and my
God, my God. We will declare Him, we will
own Him as the sovereign. We will acknowledge that He is
sovereign, and we will bow to Him as the sovereign. Look at verse 31. I want us to
notice one last thing here. He said to Thomas in verse 27,
reach hither thy finger, And Thomas answered, verse 28, my
Lord and my God. And listen to what the Lord said
after that and what we're told in the rest of this chapter.
Then saith unto him, unto Thomas, saith Jesus unto Thomas, because
thou hast seen me, thou hast believed. Blessed are they that
have not seen and yet have believed. Thomas saw him beyond just his physical appearance. because faith is a heart matter.
He saw him in here. He knew he owned him for who
he is and for what he did for sinners. And we who don't see him, we
see him. We see him by faith. Blessed
are your eyes for they see. but they that have not seen the
way Thomas did in a physical sense and yet by faith. Faith is the evidence of things
not seen and the substance of things hoped for. And then look at the rest of
the chapter. I've never really made this connection, I guess,
before, but many other signs truly did Jesus in the presence
of his disciples which are not written in this book, but these
are written that you might believe. What was that whole passage we
just read about? Maybe we should change Thomas's
name, you think? Instead of doubting Thomas, let's
call him Believing Thomas. Thomas believed because the Lord
Jesus Christ showed himself to him in his redemptive character. in his character as God's lamb
slain for the remission of sins and spoke to him in power. You
know, that's how you're gonna be saved too. The Lord Jesus
will have to reveal himself to you, crucified and risen. He was risen from the dead and
standing there, revealing himself, showing forth what he did for
them. Is that what he shows us this morning? How does he do
it? These are written that you might believe. Thomas believed. Will you believe? You're not gonna see what Thomas
did physically. But how will you see what Thomas
saw? These are written, that you might believe that Jesus
is the Christ, the Son of God. These are written that you might
be able to say from your heart, my Lord and my God. And that believing you might
have life through his name May He come where we are and stand
in the midst. Maybe the door is shut of your
heart this morning. He's not gonna politely knock
on it. If He's come to save you this morning, He's already in there, isn't
He? He's already within. He's already in the midst. And may He do that for everybody
here. Come. Then came Jesus. And he
showed himself crucified. He showed what he did for sinners. He showed that he's God's perfect
lamb, that he's God's holy lamb, that he's God's powerful, almighty
lamb. You know, it was the lamb. Where
did John see the lamb? Sitting upon a throne, high and
lifted up. May he show himself to us this
day that way and speak in power. Peace be unto you. Peace be unto
you. And behold, my hands in my side
and be not faithless, but believing. Amen. Let's pray.